Things to do in London this weekend (September 12-13)

The Bayeux Tapestry isn’t just a work of art: it is literal history, a near-1,000-year-old artefact that is also the primary source for our understanding of the most momentous year in the story of our own country. Woven in England, displayed in Bayeux, Normandy, the tapestry is now on display in the British Museum. Photos of a few key moments in your school textbooks may encompass its highlights, but they scarcely touch on it as art. Laid out flat in one continuous 70 metre strip, the Bayeux Tapestry is astonishing, a heady mix of the familiar and the unfamiliar that teeters somewhere between outsider art, medieval illumination, action cartoon, historical document and blithe propaganda. It’s extraordinary to see: sacred, profane, childish, profound, defining of our world but utterly unworldly.

Ever wanted to have a nosy around some of London’s coolest private buildings? Open House London gives guests free access to architectural wonders that are not normally open to the public – from schools and offices to places of worship. It’s an often rare chance to explore iconic or just interesting buildings that make up the capital’s storied history, while the programme usually includes tons of workshops, exhibitions and more, as well as the usual tours. This year, the full programme will be announced on July 15, with bookings opening on August 19. Get practising your clicking now – these tickets go faster than Glastonbury.

Tired of merely listening to your favourite podcast hosts yabbering away? Now you can watch them at it IRL at London Podcast Festival, which is hosting some of the best podcasting talents from the UK and US live at Kings Place over another 11 days this September. This year get a front seat at plenty of big shows in the audio world, including hugely successful British Asian pod Tommy's Brownload, Wrong Turns with Jameela Jamil, family fact show No Such Thing As A Fish, The Empire Film Podcast and The Beef and Dairy Network Podcast (trust us, it’s waaay more fun than it sounds!)

At this Hong Kong-inspired noodle bar everything is steamy. Owned by the restaurant group behind Peckham’s much-loved Mr Bao, Wonton Charlie’s is a casual joint attached to the front of vibey Cantonese restaurant Cafe Kowloon. It’s been a popular lunchspot since late 2025, but only recently started dinner service. The space has an airy, canteen-like feel, with a massive stainless steel bar wrapping round the kitchen. Storied chef Budgie Montoya stands at its centre, dishing out noodle soup and dumplings. For the grub, it’s a simple offering. Choose your wonton (pork, prawn, both or fish skin), choose your noodles (with or without broth), choose your side (crispy fish skin or fish balls). The broth is clear but rich in flavour. Handmade noodles are thin but still have a good bite. The plump hand-wrapped wontons come with a bouncy, meaty filling. This is an unpretentious place to get a relaxed bite that won’t break the bank.

At the start of The National Theatre’s most anticipated show of 2026 the two leads – Cate Blanchett and Nina Hoss – toss a coin at the start to see who plays which role. It’s an idea that has some resonance with the themes of duality and identity and shows how good Blanchett and Hoss are. And they’re really, really good: even if Benedict Andrews’ production doesn’t entirely ‘work’, the sense that it is just bloody amazing having two incredible actors doing an enormous amount of acting – and that we’re actually only seeing half of it – carries the night. Persona follows Elisabeth, a star of stage and screen who is sent to an isolated country retreat with her nurse Alma in the hope she’ll recover after being mysteriously struck dumb following her performance in a production of Sophocles’s Greek tragedy Electra. The two stars of the show are really bloody good, and watching them journey to the deepest recesses of the characters’ blurred souls is all you should want from the stage, really.

In a season of splashy horror debuts, the most unsettling of them all is also the quietest. Aussie director Adrian Chiarella does offer us a supernatural big bad in Leviticus, but it’s very nearly beside the point. The real terrors here are entirely human: cruelty, fear, ignorance, and alienation. Joe Bird is Naim, an Australian teen who’s just been moved to live with a small community in the middle of nowhere by his deceptively passive mother (Mia Wasikowska). Among the group’s values is the belief – cited from the Book of Leviticus – that homosexuality is an abomination to be snuffed out immediately. This is a problem for Naim since he’s falling in love for the first time, with the equally disaffected Ryan (Stacy Clausen). Horror is often used allegorically, and Chiarella never bothers to hide his intentions. He’s made a pretty straightforward story about the crushing pain of a world that refuses to accept you. But also, and this is what elevates Leviticus so far above similar indies, the eminent relief when you finally find someone who does.

Organised by the people behind Percolate and Love International festival in Croatia, mid-September’s electronic music festival Waterworks is a final chance to squeeze every last drop of festival fun out of the summer. It’s taking over east London venue The Cause for a marathon 36-hour edition that promises to be no less spectacular. Waterworks Extended will take place across seven spaces around the industrial megaclub in the Docklands, with the same DJs playing across a mixture of indoor and outdoor rooms. The big names on the programme include Alex Kassian, babyschön, djrum, Midland and Sofia Kourtesis. That’s on top of B2Bs from Bradley Zero and Erol Alkan, Christian AB and Craig Richards, Raresh and Sonja Moonea, and OK Williams and Skee Mask, Call Super and Objekt, and Sully and Special Request. 

London is widely recognised as one of the design capitals of the world. Cementing this title is the annual Design Festival, a colourful and thought-provoking celebration of some of the world's best designers, who interrogate the boundaries of design through events, exhibitions and installations. The 2026 programme is packed full of surprising installations and intriguing collaborations. Wander down the Strand in Covent Garden and you'll spot The Pangolin Shield, a pavilion inspired by the endangered scaly beasts, situated opposite India's High Commission as a comment on the movement of people and species across borders, and the legacy of colonisation. Head to the Barbican and you'll have the opportunity to lounge on a comfy installation by MADE, as part of an interiors collection inspired by this architectural landscape. There are 11 distinct design districts, designed to highlight the places where creative Londoners cluster. 

Ahoy! London's annual river marathon sees over 2,500 competitors from around the globe battle to become the UK's Traditional Boat Champions. Participants in The Great River Race range from serious athletes to recreational rowers in fancy dress. It's a spectator's dream watching the motley crew of boats charge down the river, there's gigs, skiffs, Chinese dragon boats, Hawaiian war canoes, Viking longboats, Irish curraghs, shallops, wherries and whalers. For 2026, the race starts at Millwall Slipway, E14 at 12.45am and finishes at Ham House, Richmond, TW10 where food stalls and live music awaits. You can follow the race for free along the route or buy £45 tickets to watch from the Connaught supporters' boat.

Gayle Rankin has a wild turn in Scottish filmmaker Louis Paxton’s beguiling debut, The Incomer. Rankin plays Isla, one half of an exceedingly strange, semi-feral sibling duo completed by Outlander star Grant O’Rourke as her softer, jollier-in-spirit brother, Sandy. They’ve been isolated on a remote island somewhere off the northeastern coast of Scotland, with their parents little but unreliable memories. Marrying the dark anarchy of Lord of the Flies with a dash of Limbo’s kooky, bruised heart, Paxton delivers a furiously funny piece of folklore. It’s a delightfully dotty film that adds a twist of Yorgos Lanthimos to its Celtic spirit. It’ll make you ‘ca-caw’ like a seagull.

Another year, another spectacular line-up of classical music. This year, the orchestral extravaganza will feature 86 concerts across eight weeks, with over 3,000 artists taking to the stage, with the majority of the action taking place inside the grand surroundings of London’s Royal Albert Hall. There'll be the chance to hear visiting ensembles from all over the world, including The Met Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, Mahler Academy Orchestra and the Spanish National Orchestra, as well as innumerable concerts and recitals from the classic music world's biggest stars. This weekend, catch the Last Night of The Proms! 

The usually tranquil St Katherine Docks will be alive with music and colour, as more than 70 classic vessels moor up for the Classic Boat Festival, a family-friendly celebration of maritime heritage that’s been a fixture for the Tower Bridge neighbourhood since 2010. Visitors will get a chance to climb aboard a whole bunch of vintage watercrafts, from a fleet of 24 little ships used for the rescue mission at Dunkirk, WW2 classics and restored 1930s narrowboats, to vessels used by the Marine Police Unit and Royal Navy, and the late Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee barge Gloriana. 

As You Like It is mostly a play about a large assortment of oddballs living in a forest for some reason. It definitely has a plot, but it also kind of plays out like an eccentric Tudor sketch show. While many productions get lost in the woods, dual directors Sean Holmes and Charlie Josephine – plus their creative team headed by designer Paul Wills – are excellent guides through the trees. This is not a production that comes with a high concept, but by making every character as vivid as possible, visually and personality-wise, it’s just a great, boisterous production where you don’t find yourself questioning ‘and who is THAT guy?’ two hours in. From Lola Shalam’s highly strung romantic lead Rosalind and Grace Oddie-James as her amusingly laidback posh girl BFF Celia to co-director Josephine’s own turn as insecure wannabe geezer Orlando, all the way to Jonathan Broadbent’s scene-stealing Touchstone, it is simply very fun to spend some time in Wills’ whiteboard forest with these people. 

Five years in the making, Ed Sayers’ feature debut brings together 40 people across 25 countries, each armed with a Super 8 camera to film the natural world on their doorstep. The result is like a lo-fi remix of Godfrey Reggio’s epic Koyaanisqatsi – both a celebration of nature and environmental omen, albeit minus the tribal warbling. There’s no to-the-death battles here or exotic mating rituals. Accompanied by Alexandra Hamilton-Ayres’s spectral score, this is nature, up close and often very personal. The sheer variety of life is astounding. We see octopus in Patagonia; silkworms in London; water buffalo in Assam; reindeer in the Arctic Circle; fin whales in Thailand; rattlesnakes in the Mojave Desert; the puffins of Skomer Island in Wales… Inevitably, man’s impact crashes the party. The film is touring London cinemas before going nationwide. Catch it while you can.

The pretty courtyard outside arts centre Woolwich Works will be filled with live music, dance and community parades for this cultural festival. This year’s theme ‘Our Voices, Our Future’ will shape the arts and crafts stations and the performances from dancers, musicians, local groups and schools. There’ll also be street food on offer to keep you satiated. 

Following its success over the last two years, CelebrASIA is once again taking over Battersea Power Station with a celebration of South East Asia that shines a light on the cuisines and creativity of the region. Held both inside and outside of the art deco power station, the whole area will get a colourful transformation in the form of lanterns, sculptures and immersive installations, transporting you straight to the continent without actually having to leave London. There’ll be comedy sets, cooking classes, craft workshops, film screenings, live music, an artisan market and national dress parades, plus expert panels exploring South East Asia’s influence on fashion, food, literature and culture across the globe.

Six years after our own very real pandemic, Hollywood’s first Covid-inspired blockbuster manifests what many of us fantasised about during the darkest moments of the first lockdown – a broken world emptied of human life. Influenza is to blame in Ridley Scott’s film, which technically makes it an a-cough-alypse, and while there are bursts of Mad Max berserking, The Dog Stars is a surprisingly sensitive meditation on what we could have lost. Interspersed with sweeping IMAX-ready shots of Hig’s plane puttering through the canyons, for long, unthreatening stretches, the drama is so leisurely it’s borderline Gone Fishin’ – a post-apocalyptic hangout movie where its characters stare at the stars, the plaintive score strums with acoustic guitar and they contemplate past lives lost. This isn’t a negative – in fact, it’s what makes The Dog Stars distinctive. 

This free summer pop-up event in Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens is a lively way to test your karaoke skills in the fresh air, hosted by Joe Hatchiban and with refreshments available from local vendors. No need to book - just show up and belt out your faves in a crowd of singing, dancing music fans.  

In playwright Simon Stephens’ four-hander (that for the most part is actually a two-hander), Ashton (Ross Gaynor) and Reece (Ian Toner) have become unlikely bedfellows stuck in a bunker together while an apocalypse rages outside. Three years in, they know everything they could possibly know about each other, and maintain what little sense of hope they can by roleplaying key ‘moments’ from each other’s life – selecting treasured memories as you might a show on Netflix. The conversation teeters on the philosophical in places, but for the most part it’s a frank and relatable look at what really matters if you were to strip everything else away. For Ashton, it’s memories of a crush, a promotion, his mother; for Reece, it’s his son.

The Brit comedy superstar grapples with fame and fortune in his latest show, which kicks off in London in the autumn at the Apollo, heads across the country and throughout Europe, then call in at The O2 for a pre-Christmas victory lap.

This community festival is back, taking over unusual local indoor and outdoor venues across south east London to screen feature films for kids and adults, artists' film and video and archive footage. This year’s highlights include a screening and film quiz at The Man of Kent (Sep 8), a spooky screening of The Blair Witch Project in Nunhead Cemetery (Sep 5), a short film night at Peckham Plex (Sep 5), and a finale screening of standout 2025 film Sinners at LEX2 Livesey Exchange (Sep 13). Look out also for showings of Blue Velvet, Paddington 2, Moonlight, Human Traffic, Burning an Illusion, and Labyrinth at weird and wonderful venues. 

Acclaimed Mexican-American stand-up Ricote settles in at the Park Theatre’s studio for a few weeks of shows. Inkling transfers straight down from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where the hard of hearing comic’s ‘stupidest and smartest show yet’ has received great reviews.

It hasn’t always been clear why Matthew Warchus decided to reconfigure the Old Vic to an in-the-round set-up. But it does all pay off with this fine revival of an early Alan Ayckbourn classic. 1969’s How the Other Half Loves is explicitly written to be performed in-the-round with a single central set standing in for the homes of couples Frank and Fiona Foster and also Teresa and Bob Phillips. Moreover, time is telescoped and chopped up, so that two very different dinner parties that happen on consecutive nights at the two different homes are spliced together into one amusingly unpredictable whole. It’s a funny, zingy, intricately wrought and strangely wholesome play and it’s the brilliant comic performances that make this thing tick. Roger Allam is superb as Frank, and Dorothy Atkinson plays an increasingly panicked Fiona. How the Other Half Loves still sings, a clever, strangely sweet infidelity farce that’s of the ‘60s, but remains timelessly funny.

Taiwanese artist Musquiqui Chihying uses a blend of installation, video, photography, and sculpture to explore our complicated relationship with technology and how modern-day tech systems are reshaping the ways we live our lives – all with a humorous and surreal edge. See four of the artist’s imaginative, idiosyncratic and quietly provocative works at this free Haywood Gallery exhibition. A Life of Navigation includes Chihying’s early works commenting on our hectic urban lives, as well as two newly produced video installations commenting on artificial intelligence and gaming culture. 

If he hadn’t been France’s defining 20th-century statesman, Charles de Gaulle might have made a great comedy straight man. Played by a poker-faced Simon Abkarian in the first instalment of this two-part, bilingual French epic, he carries the air of a man who knows that, yes, that ladder is about to crash to the ground and someone is getting covered in paint. Adapted from Julian T Jackson’s 900-page 2018 biography ‘A Certain Idea of France’, De Gaulle: Résistance is about how the French President-to-be worked himself up through the cracks of history. He’s a captivating and paradoxical figure: a home-front soldier and an unelected democrat who conjures an unofficial mandate for himself through bulldozing force of will and an unwavering belief in himself and his country. HIn UK and Ireland cinemas Aug 28. 

Australian comic McNair’s alternately uplifting and harrowing account of squaring up to childhood sexual abuse was warmly received at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe for its clear-eyed and very funny mix of the silly and the serious. Now it heads to Soho Theatre, who produced its Edinburgh run.

Three feature films deep and it’s safe to say that Jane Schoenbrun has created a brand new subgenre of cinema. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is both a continuation of the preoccupations of their first two features and a leap into more vulnerable territory, accompanied by a dazzling step up in the sophistication of the world-within-a-world building. Schoenbrun has form in creating additional media to sit within their films as a source of nurture for protagonists wrestling with secret shames and desires. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is a meta horror-comedy and a whip-smart entertainment industry satire.

The Royal Academy’s Richard Dadd: Beyond Bedlam, is the first major exhibition devoted to the often overlooked Victorian artist in more than 50 years. Dadd spent nearly a decade completing works like ‘The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke’ while confined to Bethlem Hospital—better known as Bedlam—after killing his father in a severe psychotic episode. In 1864, he was transferred to the newly opened Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, where he remained until his death in 1886. The exhibition, however, doesn’t begin there. Instead, it returns to Dadd’s days as a student at the Royal Academy Schools, just across from where this exhibition hangs today. While there, he became a founding member of one of Britain’s OG artistic cliques and developed his lifelong fascination with fairies, creating magical, delicate, yet dark works crammed with naughty faces and gossamer dresses. Together, these works remind us that, although Dadd’s body was confined, his imagination never was.

It’s not hard to see why American musical theatre powerhouse Ben Platt was attracted to the British debut of Mark Sonnenblick’s 2018 off-Broadway show. A two-hander, it’s a great vehicle for his talents as a singer and actor. But there’s more to this funny, sad and wistful piece – directed here by David Cromer. It’s New York, 1965, and Platt is Trevor, the singing half of a performing and romantic duo, alongside songwriter Arthur (Gregor Milne). It’s an era when being gay is a threat to life and livelihood. We are Trevor’s audience in smoky Greenwich Village club the Never Get as he tells – and sings – the story of their turbulent relationship and contrasting careers. He’s simultaneously charismatic and achingly vulnerable, sending a gorgeous shiver through every song or landing a wisecrack with a practised twinkle.